It depends on the board and the villain. Obviously with an ace high and no reads you are folding. As well as middle pair. TPTK can be argued for or against, but it's villain dependent, board dependent, and your possible redraws.

Also, don't c-bet the full pot. Only bet enough that will give you the information you need. Let middle pair/top pair worse kicker think they might be good, but charge draws if they are out there. Bet enough to find out if TPTK isn't good, but not so much that you feel you can't get away from it.

About half the pot is a pretty good amount to c-bet. If you have air, or middle pair, or TPWK, and you get raised you can fold easily without having risked too much money.

Yeah this should be fairly obvious.
I think 3-betting scs and pps is very profitable at this stake as well, depending on the player and positions of course. Alot of the fish who actually raise preflop still play 100% fit or fold, they often call your 3-bets with pretty much 75%+ of their raising range and fold flop when they miss. Add to that the fact that they're hands with great implied odds and you want the pot to be inflated when you hit, and I think these are good hands to 3-bet. Obviously you still need to be just flatting when villains have very small preflop raise stats, and folding to short villains.

But yeah, you don't have to limp or call practically at all.

Yes, against the weak passives only though. Even the bad nits are going to raise you pretty often, the lagfish are gonna go totally nuts on you. small c-bets vs loose passive players, bigger vs nits and maniacal fish.

I've noticed that against most bad uNL players who just play their cards you can vary your c-bets pretty freely depending on your hand strength, betting around ½ pot when you miss and full pot when you hit. They're not paying attention to things like that anyway so they won't exploit it, you get the best of both worlds - lose the minimum with your bluffs and gain the maximum with your value bets. Just make sure not to make a habit of this when moving up the stakes

I've been trying to vary my cbet size based on the board; e.g. bet 1/2 pot on an 8 4 4 rainbow board because chances are my opponent missed, but bet pot on an 8 9 10 monochrome board because there are lots of draws. This sets it up for when I have the big hand or the big draw and I want to get it all in; I want everyone to think I'm FOS most of the time so I can stack people. Now if I missed I'd probably give it up most of the time if OOP on either flop but I'd be more likely to double barrel a drawy board depending on the opponent.

I hate to limp but I'm not 100% opposed to cold calling a raise w/o a pocket pair, but the circumstances have to be right. I don't know if it's designed for losing frustrated players, but it seems impossible that you could have enough hands to prove you were good without moving up past microstakes. Is every microstakes player too unskilled to cold call preflop, unless they're rebuilding from a tilt disaster or something? I like the general idea, don't be overly passive, and I'm all for being the most aggressive preflop at the table and I usually am when I play but you don't have to take the lead EVERY time unless you're set mining imo. For instance medium/deep stacks on the button with 75s UTG raise and CO calls why would you 3 bet here, and why would you fold assuming you can play the hand as well as nearly anyone at uNL? With these hands you're hoping for a bad TAG to overplay their big pair but if you 3 bet you give them the chance to get all in like they wanted.

Playing from the blinds is difficult for me. I always think of "defending the blinds". How do you chose between folding and defending your blind?

Please define "fantastic" pot odds.

In the micros I wouldn't worry too much about defending your blinds. If you have a marginal hand, folding to just about any blind steal attempt isn't terribly wrong--especially in the SB. Often times you can make the blind right back by stealing the next round yourself.

If you have a hand that you would play anyway, then you can defend. But I think most micro players make the mistake of defending too much.

This is WC's thread, though. So again, correct me if I'm way off base on this.

If that's the case, can't you 3-bet ATCs? I'd assume they play the same as SCs and non-premium PPs; you are folding both to a 4-bet shove, and c-betting when they call, and check the flop.

What range of hands should you raise with from the bb if you've got say two or three limpers. Assuming you don't know much about them and they don't know much about you

JJ+, AQs+

Occasionally TT+.

You should raise junk sometimes too if you find you're taking it down a lot. In this case you should raise your WORST hands (such as 82o), not reasonable hands such as J9s. This is because there is more value in checking and seeing a flop with J9s than with 82o.

[QUOTE=WCGRider;3383298]After reading most of the responses in my advice thread (and by all means continue to ask questions.), there are a few things that are SERIOUSLY GETTING to me.

1) STOP CALLING PREFLOP. ASKDJFKLASJDFLKASDJFLAKS STOP IT! STOP IT RIGHT NOW!!!!

- Explanation: Calling preflop, in general is terrible. Most of the time in poker, you do not have a hand. You have something speculative. The SAME goes for your opponent. By raising, you take most flops down with a cbet and do not get credit when you hit.


Thanks for this advice. I was such a limpbot at cash, bleeding money everytime I sat down. I took your advice and started winning even on ace high boards with a med PP the villain folds to my c-bet. Your help is solid gold my friend

too much limping cut that out. attack more pots. Stop nut pedling. Your AF is way too low, your dream stats are

V$PIP = 20
ATT. To steal blinds = 32
Won $ WSF% = 42
Went to SD% = 25
Won $ at SD% = 53
PF raise % = 17
Total AF = 6

Do what it takes to get there. Your won $ at SD is very high given your went to SD%, you might be running good.

you are wrong and probably bad.

Cbets should be generally 3/4 but smaller on drier boards and more on we boards. generally speaking fold to aggression at uNL. They usually have it.

my advice was more geared towards 100 bb online games. Deeper games play differently but even deep hand deception is important. That said when you play deep the value of hitting a hand goes up so its just tougher to analyze from that. You made some decent points but remember no one knows anything this is uNL 100 bb poker LETS RAISE IT UP BABY

dont ever defend your blinds.

simple right?

just fold your junk always and check virtually always without a big hand. (id prob do TT+ AQs at uNL)

Do you think it is at all +EV (even a little) to "steal" against limpers with a big raise from the BB? And if so, how many limpers and how often would they need to fold?

Ex: I have 67s in the BB. 4 people limp and SB completes. I raise to 10xBB. (Or something bigger than a normal raise)

ONLY OCCASIONALLY

Your thoughts? I never do this as it is, but I remember reading somewhere that someone suggested it can add to your winrate.

Actually I disagree a little here, I have been experimenting a little with blind defending lately, 3-betting a wider range from the blinds at 50NL.
I don't think this works out to well at higher stakes, but I am not actually showing PROFITS from the blinds.

Most of the times I take it down right away, and if they call they usually fold to a c-bet. They will fold just about everything except a strong made hand in that situation.

What's your thought on this?

I don't mean doing this relentlessly, but I do this alot against CO/Button openers.

u, my friend, are NOT making a profit from the blinds. if u r it means ur playing in correctly from the blinds but are lucking out in the short term atm

Actually from day to day I am making profit in the blinds, but ofcourse not PROFIT over the long run. But I consider it to be profit when diff w/o blinds is VERY high and the decifit total won ammount from blinds is so small that id consider calling it making profits, if you catch my drift.

Terrible. Puts you in a bloated pot oop with air against a bunch of idiots. How this can help your winrate is beyond.

At 50 nl this becomes a little better and as you move up becomes way common to the point where not doing this starts to counter it and become common again (because if you do thsi they 4 bet shove light etc counter game imo). So i mean sure if used a bit it can be ok but generally speaking you want to play solid hands when you are oop.